JURIST - Paper Chase: Israel soldiers rarely charged for violence against Palestinians: report

[JURIST] The Israeli government has failed to investigate and indict members of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) [official website] for acts of violence committed against Palestinian civilians, according to a report [PDF text] issued Tuesday by Israeli human rights group Yesh Din [advocacy website]. According to the report, thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed during the last seven years, but the Israeli government has only opened 239 investigations into such killings. Additionally, the report says that only 10 percent of criminal investigations of IDF troops have resulted in any indictment being filed.

Yesh Din concluded:

it is the IDF's duty to protect the civilian population that is not involved in the hostilities, a duty set forth in the Laws of Belligerent Occupation, the branch of International Law of Armed Conflict and in International Human Rights Law. The figures [represented in the report] present the IDF's de facto derogation of that duty. They mean that any soldiers serving in the [occupied territories] knows well that the chances he will have to account for a serious crime committed against Palestinian residents of the [occupied territories] ... are minute.

Yesh Din said it will be conducting its own investigation into the low number of indictments. BBC News has more.

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